Define Gender Roles In America

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Strongly defined gender roles that have significantly influenced society throughout history are not empowering for women. Instead, they have limited women and their progress. While gender roles have become less institutionalized in the last century, they still hold significant social power. They often appear subtly, especially in the progressive age we live in today, where equality is becoming a much more inclusive and tolerant concept in many areas of the world. However, they continue to play a large role in both men and women's lives and are reinforced daily. These gender roles have throughout history, and continue to, impede on women's success. Specifically, gender roles have limited women’s job opportunities, pushed women to avoid positions …show more content…
Along with being perceived as subordinates to men, there is a common stereotype that women are weak and too emotional. This is, quite literally, disempowering for women. The imbalance between genders is clearly shown in the United States’ government today. “Women still hold less than 20 percent of congressional seats, despite composing majority of the US population.” (Why Does the US Still Have So Few Women in Office?). Women not being taken as seriously as men, due to gender stereotypes, has continued to greatly affect how countries are run. Arend Lijphart, author of Patterns of Democracy, found a connection between more women in legislature and more policies being issued on areas such as the environment, violence prevention, education, and health. These progressive ideas were able to be instituted due to the progressive mindset of the country, that moved away from more conservative ideas, including traditional gender roles. These gender roles put women at a disadvantage as they are labeled as inferior and unfit to be in positions of …show more content…
That is, women are judged to care more about their looks and appealing to others than caring about their own success. Consequently, this has led to a social concept that women’s external appearance or appeal are more important. This gender stereotype is commonly supported in media when females are interviewed, whether an actress or Olympic athlete. The type of questions interviewers ask often center around women’s looks, sexuality, or femininity. Their accomplishments seem less significant, because they are rarely the focus of the interview. This is especially common in female athletics. For example, in last years Australian Open, tennis player Eugenie Bouchard was interviewed just after winning her second-round match of the tournament. Rather than asking questions about the match or her experiences in the tournament so far, she was asked, “‘Can you give us a twirl and tell us about your outfit?’” (Eugenie Bouchard Advances, Twirling Only Her Racket). This question Bouchard was asked greatly differed than those asked to the male players, which tend to concern how they have been training, or how they plan to move forward. What she wore to the match was deemed more necessary to focus on than the match itself, or her success, by the media. At the tournament in 2014, she was asked, “If you could date anyone in the world of sport, of movies – I’m sorry, they asked me to say this – who would you date?”
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